1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, method, and program, and more particularly to an information processing apparatus, method, and program which allow a user to easily find a scene to be viewed in a recorded content.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a recorded program list (in the following, called a menu screen) displayed by a recording and playback apparatus in which a television broadcasting program is recorded.
In the example of FIG. 1, thumbnail images and titles of individual recorded programs are displayed. These thumbnail images are generated, for example, from image data of programs taken in at the time of the start of recording. If recording is started from the start of the broadcasting of a program, the thumbnail image is produced by a thumbnail of an initial image of the program. The display of the title is generated, for example, by title information extracted from EPG (Electronic Program Guide) information.
When a thumbnail image or a title display corresponding to a predetermined program of a menu screen is selected by a user's operation on a remote controller, etc., for specifying a program to be viewed, the data of the specified program is read out from a recording medium to be played back.
In this manner, the user is allowed to find a program to be viewed from the menu screen, and to view the program.
There are various kinds of methods for displaying a list of recorded programs. For example, programs are classified on the basis of validated dates of the programs set in the programs to be reserved for recording, and a list of recording programs is displayed for each classified program. In this method, a display unit is based on a program (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-173766).